Is UMass a get-right game for Mizzou?

Oct 9, 2024 | Uncategorized

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Nothing went right for Mizzou against Texas A&M. Does it matter if it all goes right this week? | (CAL TOBIAS/ROCK M NATION)

The Tigers are looking to rebound after a disgusting performance last week. Will doing it against this opponent matter?

As a brilliant poet from a bygone era once wrote:

“I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna keep me down. I get knocked down, but I get up again. You are never gonna gonna keep me down.” — Chumbawumba (1997)

Coming off arguably the worst performance of the Eli Drinkwitz era, the Mizzou football Tigers are in desperate need of a vibe shift, a mojo rejuvenation, a momentum reboot, or any kind of movement in a positive direction. Mizzou needs, in college football parlance, a get-right game. Unfortunately for the Tigers, this week’s opponent may not provide the prerequisites for the type of proper demon-exorcising get-right game that can help put them back on the right track.

Missouri quarterback Brady Cook (12) takes out his mouthguard after getting sacked for a loss of six yards in the second quarter of a game against Texas A&M on Saturday, October 5, 2024, at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas. (CAL TOBIAS/ROCK M NATION)

The anatomy of “getting right”

It’s a tale as old as time: a ranked Power 4 opponent loses a difficult or disappointing game and rebounds the next week by taking out their frustrations on an undermanned team, winning handily and in convincing fashion. Commonly known as a “get-right game,” this type of performance allow a team to ostensibly fix, or “get-right,” the issues that plagued them in their loss the week prior. These games also allow the rebounding team to vent their frustrations from a potentially season-altering loss on some poor sap of a squad that has little chance of competing in the game.

After experiencing the brutal beat down last week in the form of a 41-10 loss to Texas A&M, the Mizzou football team is stewing in their feels, ripe for a get-right game. Sadly, this week’s match up against UMASS won’t give them the satisfaction they want and need.

To qualify as a get-right game, a few requirements must be met:

1) Disappointing loss the previous week.

2) Noticeable deficiencies that need to be corrected.

3) Undermanned FBS opponent.

The Tigers check the first two boxes with giant capital CHECK marks. The third requirement, however, doesn’t quite meet the standard. To call the UMASS Minutemen an undermanned opponent is an insult to all the bad, uncompetitive G5 teams around the country. Playing an FCS opponent can’t count as a get-right game because the disparity in talent and resources is so vast that satisfaction can’t be achieved, no matter how bad the final score looks. The UMASS program, while technically FBS in name, is not in practice

Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images
UMASS is bad.

Moribund Minutemen

Inexplicably, UMASS made the (terrible) decision to join the FBS ranks in 2012. This followed several years of success at the FCS level, including eight playoff births in 30 years. In a stretch from 1998-2008, the Minutemen went a combined 92-56, including 43-19 under current head coach Don Brown in his first stint in Amherst. Strangely, UMASS leadership got a wild hair to move the program up a level in 2012 and in the subsequent 13 years, the Minutemen have gone 25-117. In Don Brown’s sequel stint beginning in 2022, UMASS is 5-25.

There is bad and then there is UMASS bad. So far this season, the Minutemen are 1-5, with losses to:

Eastern Michigan (28-14)
Toledo (38-23)
Buffalo (34-3)
Miami OH (23-20)
Northern Illinois (34-20)

Their lone win was against an FCS team in 2-3 Central Connecticut State (35-31). That’s a CCSU Blue Devil team that went 3-8 last year. No matter how bad the Tigers beat the Minutemen this week, the sheer disparity in talent and resources, as well as the moribundity of the UMASS program, will render the entire performance moot (see Mizzou vs. Delaware State, 2016).

The Tigers clearly have many problems that need solved, issues to be fixed and bad vibes to be vacuumed following the shellacking by the Aggies last week:

Passing game efficiency
Running game efficiency
Gaping holes in the defensive line
Porous coverage in the secondary
A partridge in a pear tree

Sadly, none of these problems can be counted as solved, even if the team shows improvement on Saturday. If Brady Cook goes 23-25 for 325 yards and four touchdowns? UMASS’s secondary is bad. If the running game averages 8 yards per carry? UMASS’s run defense is even worse. If the Tigers hold the Minutemen to 3 yards per carry? UMASS already averages that much per carry against worse competition. Hold UMASS to 200 passing yards? That’s what they average against worse competition.

No matter how it’s sliced, a Tiger win, whether it be by 20, 30, or 50 points, will not rinse the taste of orange juice and toothpaste from the mouths of the players, coaches and fans. The only thing that can replace that bad taste is a win over a competitive program. Unfortunately, the Tigers won’t get an opportunity to do that for another week. So, instead, we will all have to sit in this pit of poop for a while longer, hoping we can at least see some long touchdown passes and a third down stop or two on defense. For as the bard sang:

I get knocked down (we’ll be singing)
But I get up again (pissing the night away)
You are never gonna keep me down (when we’re winning)

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